Book Review: Elegantly Simple Solutions to Complex People Problems

I’ll take it as a given that everybody experiences some of those knotty problems in life, places where they can’t seem to get out of their own way. I know it’s true of myself, and I sometimes find it’s the most charitable explanation I can think of for some others’ behavior.

If you share that experience, you’ll find Elegantly Simple Solutions to Complex People Problems, by Jaemin Frazer, to be a valuable resource in untangling some of those difficult issues.

Simple Solutions is divided into two sections:

The first deals with how we adjust our way of looking at things so that we can make change happen. He calls that outlook the coaching frame, and it involves giving ourselves some space so that we can make changes from a point of freedom and a desire to move forward, instead of a sense of constriction or a fear of being wrong.

In the second section, he goes through three sources of these personal tangles, and looks at how we can see the problems differently so that we can give ourselves more power to make choices we can live with.

Frazer draws from the practice of coaching — both as teacher and learner — as well as neurolinguistic programming and other common-sense resources to give a solid foundation for a process that happens inside our deep minds. It gives comfort and hope to people struggling with their own hindering habits.

If there were one thing I would change about the book, it’s that I wish he had gone more deeply into the “how” of creating the right “state” (frame of mind) for the different activities and pursuits of our lives.

That small issue aside, I found it a good book and a valuable resource, one that I expect to return to again and again in the future.